– What is the political compass cause I still can’t understand it
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Back in the french revolution the members of parliament were divided between the radicals and those who wanted to return to the monarchy, the conservatives. The conservatives sat on the right and the radicals sat on the left. Ever since then the western world has divided political stances into “left” (more liberal, in favor of change in the economic and social hierarchy) and “right” (more conservative and in favor of the status quo or how things used to be). This would suggest a political spectrum, with some opinions and stances at every point from the farthest left to the farthest right and everything in between.
But a single spectrum perhaps does not capture all of the nuance of different political opinions. What about people, for example, who are in favor of radical changes, but think a strong dictator or even monarch is the only way to get them; are they on the right or the left? So various multi-axis political spectrums have been proposed that overlay two different axes: right vs. left (typically in horizontal alignment) with some other axis on the vertical – the most popular is authoritarian vs. libertarian. Thus an (x,y) coordinate grid is formed where the perfect neutral stance would be at (0,0) and every other political opinion – in theory – can be plotted.
But! You might be thinking, that isn’t what a compass is at all. And you would be right, because the name “political compass” is dumb. It was popularized by a certain website of that same name that purported to plot users on the political spectrum based on their responses to a number of value propositions. Then it became a meme on reddit.
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